Another political explanation might be the massive and growing Chinese population in Siberia and some of the Western regions of Central Asia. Supporting the Buddhists might be a way of courting "guest workers" and native-born Chinese.

Russia does not have a great record on freedom of religion. Even since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and glasnost and perestroika, the Eastern Orthodox Church has been aggressively intolerant of religious minorities and interlopers. Groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses are still persecuted and are even illegal.

The Buddhists make a very handy exception. They tend to be less evangelical and less liable to the sort of things which make competitors to the Eastern Orthodox Church obnoxious to their new and old masters.

The Chinese appetite for resources and the neo-Czarist appetite for control both point to a policy of rapprochement with Buddhist monks. They tend to set a good example of quietism and positive social action rather than rebellion or aggravation of deep traditional bigotry.

THEY'RE THE ANTI-TERRORISTS OF FOREIGN RELIGIONS.

The US might want to import some. Oddly enough, one of the major Buddhist sects in the US came to the conclusion that they'd be safer in Nova Scotia*. Now what were they called? Sha-na-na? Shinola? Shambala. That's it. Shambhala Buddhists. Big in Nova Scotia. Also they have their own hippie song.

*Which is a lot smarter than the survivalist Christian family from Nova Scotia that moved to the Falklands shortly before the Falklands War erupted because they expected the End Times to break out in Tribulations immenently.